


The Scars On Our Skin

by ellagenetics



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-07-19 08:56:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7354324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellagenetics/pseuds/ellagenetics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marks made on your skin show up on another's. This person is your soulmate. So when little Draco ends up with letters carved down his back, Lucius and Narcissa take action.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Scars On Our Skin

Draco had known what soulmates were since he was a little boy. He grew up on tales of his mother and father's fated meeting, the times Lucius got ink smudged all over his hands when he was writing, as he was left handed. And the time Arthur Weasley punched Lucius in the face and the black eye transferred over to Narcissa. He knew that whatever showed up on your soulmate's skin would show up on yours, anything from spilt ink to bruises.   
So it worried his mother when Draco came down to breakfast one morning with a black eye.   
"Draco dearest, what is that on your face?" Narcissa asked delicately. Lucius looked up from his copy of The Daily Prophet to narrow his eyes.   
Little Draco shrugged. "I don't know, Mother. Sometimes they just show up. That's the first one that's been on my face though."   
"And why haven't you showed us these before?" Lucius asked his son.  
"I didn't think they were that important."   
Lucius pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. Narcissa set down her fork.   
"Honey, please tell me when these show up. I'd like to know."  
"Okay, Mother." Draco nodded. He knew when an adult used that tone you should probably obey them. His mother carefully documented the bruises appearing across her son's pale skin after breakfast. 

The next year passed, Draco's seventh birthday coming and going with little change in the method of abuse the other child was acquiring. 

It was halfway through August when something new happened. Narcissa came into her son's room one day to find different bruises across Draco's back, these in the form of rectangles. Some had broken open, leaving red cuts.   
Pale, she called Lucius in to show him. His eyebrow twitched and he stormed out, muttering about forcing new legislation through to get the muggleborns out of their homes.   
He didn't succeed, of course. The breaking point was a dreary April morning two and a half years later when the elder occupants of Malfoy Manor were awoken by screaming.   
Narcissa raced down to her son's room to find him staring at the letters that marked his stomach gruesomely. She noted more down his spine and cradled her son in her arms.   
"Shhh, sweetheart, it's okay. It's okay, mother's here." He cried into her robe, sobs muffled in the silk.  
"We gotta find them, mother. We have to! I don't want them hurt anymore!" Draco said.   
"Come on, let me see them." He willingly separated out of her arms, and she took pictures of the letters on his back and stomach. The ones on his back read, "UNNATURAL", and the ones carved across his stomach said, "WITCH".   
She covered them up with bandages, walking down to breakfast with her son. Lucius had left to eat early, so he could call a Board of Governors meeting and work on a proposition to the board, and then another to the Wizengamot.   
He kept an eye on his quiet son as he ate his toast. "Draco?"   
"Yes, father?" Draco looked up from the pancakes he was pushing around his plate.  
"I promise you I will do everything in my power to get your soulmate out of there. If it means threats and bribes then so be it. I know that most of the Dark will back me, but I may need that extra push. We will get them out."   
"You promise?"   
"I promise." 

Later that day, Narcissa hosted tea with some of the other pureblood ladies. She sent Draco off to play on his broom with the other children.   
"What can we do, Narcissa? It's not as if we have much pull within society." Violetta Bulstrode asked.   
"We have ears. We have the ears of our husbands, and the ears of many other influential people in Britain. We have money to coax people into listening." Narcissa sipped at her tea after she spoke. The other ladies looked around at each other.   
"What do you suggest we do with the mudbloods, then?" Rose Parkinson remarked snidely.   
"What I suggest, Rose, is we figure out places for the children to go. Like fostering some of them in our homes, or an orphanage if families don't wish to have a muggleborn child in their homes."  
"That could work." Violetta admitted.   
"But what lengths would we have to go to if we fostered them?" Laverna Nott said.  
"Raise them like you would your own. Like proper pureblood children. Give them a home, and food, and schooling. And as for the orphanage, I'm sure I could have Lucius work that into the legislation he is writing. Imagine, this might finally be the push we need to integrate the muggleborn children early." The room went quiet at this statement.   
"So we begin making plans, getting people to listen." Violetta said.   
"Yes. We were all Slytherins or Ravenclaws. We use our connections and our brains to do what we need to do. And in the end, we might actually get somewhere." 

 

"I'm telling you, we need to do something about this! We've been saying this for years, get the muggleborns integrated as soon as we can! The book has their names written from birth. It would be easy to switch them out with a Muggle orphan. I refuse to see magical children suffer because the Light can't see past their own Muggle-loving agenda."   
"Lucius, please stop spouting your Dark propaganda. It's not like you'll ever get anywhere."   
"This isn't about Dark propaganda!" Lucius roared. "This is about my son's obviously muggleborn soulmate, and the letters carved down his spine! The bruises, and the belt marks, and all of the marks that cover my nine year old son's skin that shouldn't be there!"  
Dumbledore looked at him across the table. "Now, Lucius my boy-"   
"No, Dumbledore, you can't see this. All I'm proposing is that we identify and monitor the muggleborn children, or any magical children that live with muggles. Before you do the mandatory house visit. And if they need to be relocated, you do it. I don't like muggleborns, mainly because they come in and try to change our culture because they can't understand it. But they are still magical children, and it is our duty as wizards to make sure they are safe." He sat back down, glaring across the table. The other wizards shifted uneasily around the room.  
"What happens when we do retrieve the children?" Augusta Longbottom asked. "Do you have a plan in place?"  
"My wife has been in discussions with some of the other ladies in pureblood society. She made the suggestion to them that those of us with the resources to foster children do so, and if we cannot then we set up an orphanage for the children. We retrieve those who show clear signs of abuse, and monitor the rest." Lucius leaned back in his seat. "All I'm asking is that we possibly station people in the homes nearby, or set up wards, or surveillance crystals in the homes."  
"I suppose that might be plausible." Augusta admitted. "What do you suggest first?"   
"I think that we ought to keep an eye on those that will attend Hogwarts within the next two years, and work our way back. We must get these children out. I promised my son that we would get them out."   
Augusta nodded. "It's decided then. We start sending people out, and when we find one, we retrieve them." 

It took three months for the legislation to begin working its way through the Wizengamot, and another month for surveillance to be placed on the homes. Within another week, wizards were being sent to retrieve the muggleborn children from their homes.   
Lucius and Narcissa chose to help one of the children themselves. They arrived at the Granger home on a Saturday in December.   
The door opened, a short black woman opening the door. "What do you want?" She looked at them suspiciously, eyeing Narcissa's expensive dress and necklace and Lucius' expensive suit and cane.   
"We're here from the NSPCC, to speak to you about your daughter." Narcissa said. "I'm Narcissa Black, and this is Lucius Malfoy."   
The woman yelled into the house. "Hermione Jean Granger! Get your arse out here! What have you said? Huh?"   
A little girl, the age of Draco, walked out into the living room with a fearful expression on her face. "I haven't said anything, mother." She had fluffy brown hair and big golden eyes. And had bruises wrapping her throat that matched Draco's.  
Narcissa exchanged a glance with Lucius. "No, we were called after too many excuses about falling down stairs and those were the last straw. We will be taking custody of your daughter, Mrs. Granger."   
She walked past the woman to the child and knelt in front of her. "My dear, we will be taking you away to a better home. Would you like to go get your things?"   
Hermione nodded and raced off. Her mother screeched. "You can't do that!"   
"Oh, but we can. It is fully within the rights of the country to take custody of a child who is being abused." Lucius said.   
Hermione ran back out with a backpack. "Okay, can we go now?"   
"Yes." Narcissa took her hand, and pulled out her wand. "Now, you'll have to hold my hand very tightly. I don't want you to get hurt while we apparate, alright?"   
Hermione nodded, and Narcissa apparated them to St. Mungo's. Lucius went back to the manor to inform Draco that they had found his soulmate, and she would be staying with them. Needless to say, he was excited. 

At St. Mungo's, Narcissa waited and watched as the healers fixed the bruises and repaired the several broken bones. She noted that Hermione had the same letters carved into her Draco's stomach. It was a tense few hours while the healers fixed up Hermione.   
"Where are we going after this, Miss Narcissa?" Hermione asked her.   
"We will be going to the home where I live, Malfoy Manor. You will be staying there with us for the foreseeable future, and you will be given the best education we can give you. You'll learn all about Wizarding culture."   
"I get to learn?" The child visibly brightened as the scars on her stomach and back were lightened to silvery scars.   
"We have a very large library. Of course." Narcissa smiled at her. "And you'll get to meet my son, who you happen to be soulmates with."   
"Cool! What's a soulmate?"   
"The person you are destined for. Every mark made on your skin shows up on their skin. You gave us quite the scare when those scars appeared on my Draco's skin." She told the girl.  
"I'm sorry." Hermione shrank into herself, the healer finishing up.   
"Oh no, don't be sorry my dear. It was not your fault." She held her hands out to the girl, and pushed up her sleeve to show the line of runes around her wrist. "See these? These are bonding marks. Lucius, the man I was with, has them too. They're from when we got married, and I'm sure you'll get some too. It's time to go, my dear."  
She held out her hand to Hermione, who grabbed her backpack and clutched her hand tightly. She apparated them to Malfoy Manor.  
"Here is your new home, dear."   
"It's so big!" She gaped at the chandelier, and the obvious wealth.   
"Mother! You're home!" Draco walked into the foyer. "And you brought her!"   
He walked up to Hermione, holding his hand out. "I'm Draco Malfoy."   
She took his hand and shook it firmly. "Hermione Granger."   
"We're soulmates, you know." He told her.  
"So I've been told."   
"See?" He took out a quill and dripped ink on his hand. It appeared on hers. "Come on, I want to give you a tour." She followed Draco from the room, and Narcissa smiled at the two children. She watched the beginning of a happy ending.

**Author's Note:**

> This may be continued, but I don't know. I hope you liked it!


End file.
